Lottery Winners - Entitlement to Privacy?

Apart from rural locations simply knowing you and noticing sudden large spends, CCTV will easily identify you. I'm sure the lotto system - when identifying the shop the winning ticket was bought in, also identifies the date - and maybe the exact time. Thus a shop owner (or any member of staff) can look up the CCTV footage from the day? I know my local Spar - very rural - is prolific in identifying people (generally for good!) using their CCTV footage 😃

That is a poor analysis. Truth is an absolute defence to defamation. If the statement is true a key ingredient of the tort is not made out. I can negligently do something to you but if you don't suffer loss, the tort of negligence is not complete and you wouldn't succeed in a suit.

Like the wise man said: "Lotteries are simply a tax on stupidity!"

Truth is an absolute defence. Clearly if the truth of the statement is not proven the tort is made out since it is presumed false. Simple proof of the making a defamatory statement of itself does not establish the tort.

Setup an account with Coutts in London.

Have the Lottery transfer the funds there.

Then announce an exciting "new job" in a foreign country which will require a move.

Put the house up for rent or sale and get the hell out Ireland. Anywhere.

Hire a PA (say €80K/year) and have them plan & manage your journey around the world including private jet hire, hotels, villas, cars, yachts etc.

The lotto dont tell the shop the time or the day or the type of ticket sold if there is a winner.

You get told that you have a winner and thats it.

I cant imagine many shopkeepers having the time or the inclination in trawling through their cctv in order to try and identify the winner.

If you did you could be fined under the gdpr regulations, probably lose your lotto licence and leave yourself open to a civil case if you made public what you found out.

You are confusing an evidential issue with a substantial issue. If you bring a defamation case you have to plead that the offending statement was false. You have to lead evidence in accordance with your pleadings to succeed.

You are trying to make the false differ from a a phrase which the defendant cannot show to be true. It is a bogus argument.

As far as sharing winnings, it doesn't matter whether you buy a physical ticket or an online ticket.

Signing the ticket is just one process to show multiple winners.

For online winners you just let the lottery that there is syndicate, they will supply the required documents.

Best bet is generate a syndicate agreement, the lottery have a standard one available for download.

No confusion here. You should stop digging at this point. You are wrong. A statement can be defamatory if true. Simple as. QED.

You have now attempt to shift the goalposts to make some wholly irrelevant point that the person would have to claim it was false.They actually would not. They would only need to do so to counter, or preempt, a defense that it was true. If the defendant offered no such defense, then the plaintiff would not even need to go there.

Either way, whether true or not, the statement would standalone as defamatory based on the definition in law of a defamatory statement.

This is pretty basic stuff.

Nope, again you are trying to argue something which was never stated. The simple point which you are trying to confuse is whether a statement needs to be false to be defamatory. It does not. Read the act. https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/31/section/2/enacted/en/html#sec2

“ defamatory statement” means a statement that tends to injure a person’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society, and “defamatory” shall be construed accordingly;

A statement which is true can indeed injure a persons reputation. Let me give you a hypothetical example. Suppose there is a person who is relatively high profile CEO of a charity on homelessness in Dublin. He gets a lot of plaudits and praise and recognition of his efforts in the media. I am a journalist and it comes to my attention that this fella is actually using his position to secretly abuse vulnerable people. I publish a statement to that effect in my paper on a Wednesday. Has that statement injured that person's reputation is the eyes of reasonable members of society? Would you, as a presumably reasonable member of society have the same regard for that person the day before you read that story, Tuesday, and the day after you read it, Thursday?

Lets suppose the published statement is accurate. In order to argue that it is not defamatory, you will now have to argue that that statement did not change your, a reasonable member of society, opinion of that CEO. You can't go back in time to the day before and retrospectively change what your opinion was of him on a Tuesday. Therefore in order for you to prove your claim that the statement is not in and of itself a defamatory statement, you would have to convince me that the published story did not diminish your regard for the man at all. in other words, the fact that he was using his position to abuse vulnerable people made no difference to the high regard you held him in for being in that position.

So that is the legal definition of "defamatory statement". Proving a statement was defamatory is not sufficient to win a case for damages. There are defenses, one of which is the truth of the statement. If used successfully the defamatory statement is still defamatory, just that no damages are awarded.

What you are talikng about there is innuendo. A true statement is used t6o imply something with is not true.

No. If the plaintiff relies on innuendo, he does have to plead that.

But a plaintiff does not, in general, have to plead or prove that the statement complained of is false. On the contrary, if the defendant wants to raise the defence of justification (i.e. the truth of the statement) he has to plead that the statement is true, and the onus is on him to prove that.

A true statement can certainly damage a person's reputation, if it's something discreditable to him that was previously unknown. Don't you think that, e.g., Rolf Harris's reuputation was damaged when it became known that he was a child abuser?

Truth is an issue in a defamation action if, and only if, the defendant raises it, by way of a defence. And, if the defendant raises it, the defendant has to prove it.